When Breathing Hurts
by elilover2
Summary: Ty dies and this is how Bay takes it. The guy she's with is Emmett, so you can count him as a main character in this. I just, though Ty deserved the second character spot.


**A/N: ANgst. Hope I did ok. Ty dies, this is how Bay feels.**

Why do people have to be so cruel?

Bay Kennish couldn't keep her thoughts from this as she stared at the coffin before her. Why did people have to be so cruel, and why did the only kind ones have to be so stupid?

It wasn't fair.

Warm tears slid down her cheeks as angry thoughts blared through her head. She fought the urge to slam the coffin closed or, worse, to pull the body out and take it away. Drag it around until it magically woke up and claimed that it had all been a joke. A terrible, horrible, sickening to think about let alone TRY to comprehend joke.

Ty couldn't be dead. Good people didn't die.

All the people stared at her reproachfully. She wasn't one of them. She was a rich girl in a sea of poor and less than poor people. SHe didn't belong.

Hypocrites. She was more like them than they knew.

Bay rubbed the backs of her hands roughly against her eyes, but that seemed to jumpstart the tear process. Tears ran down her cheeks and into her mouth. She sobbed and earned more looks from the people around her. They stared at her, glared at her, pitied her, and she didn't know why. What had she done to earn it? She was just breathing.

One last look at the still body before her and she was gone. Shoving past adults, squeezing through children too young to comprhend death. Too young to comprehend war. Bursting through the door she ran, dress flapping, hat flying, tears streaming, ran. Past the houses, past the buildings, past the the events that had done her so much harm. She wished she could chnage the past, but that wasn't possible. You can't do that. The world doesn't work like that.

She flew past the world, invisible to everyone but her self. She ran well past the time to stop, and well past the time to care. She ran until she couldn't feel and it felt so good she decided to stay.

Ty had turned 19 in that place.

He had turned 19 fighting against god knows what watching some other man die. It wasn't fair let alone humane. Why had that happened?

Why did any of it happen?

Bay turned sharply, heading down a dark road. It was late, way later than it should have been. She checked her watch. 2 am. Sitting down on the cold asphalt, she began to sob. Sob and pull out her phone and text the familiar number and feel the worn down buttons on her phone and hope to god he responded. Because, she needed someone right now.

Within minutes he was with her. No talking, just sitting. Talking would have been pointless. Talking would have meant nothing. No, worse than that, it might have meant SOMETHING. And, she couldn't have that. Not now. She just needed to be alone, but she couldn't have that either.

She needed to be with him.

Not the him in the coffin. No, the him she knew before. The one who kissed her so softly and promised to be careful when he went off. Promised to come home safe. But, that promise was broken. As broken as he was in that coffin. As broken as she was, the one left behind.

Eventually, they left. He held her hand in the car and walked her to her room. He left her alone then, and she let him. She needed to think. To plan. She needed to put her life back together before she went molding theirs together again. It wouldn't do to attach a broken life to a whole one, like it wouldn't do to put two non-matching puzzle pieces together.

It wouldn't work.

She cried. God she cried. She sobbed like a baby, and maybe that's what she was, but she didn't care. She was allowed to feel like this. She had loved him. But, was it supposed to hurt this much? She didn't think so. Just another thing that wasn't fair.

She finished crying and stood up. SHe needed to do something, but what? She didn't know.

She went to find him. Not the broken him, but the whole one. The one who could still love her back. He was waiting outside. He kissed her. She kissed him. They both tasted like depression.

She pulled back and mustered up two words. Two f**king words.

"He's dead."

He nodded. He knew.

"He's not coming back."

A shake of the head.

"I loved him."

Gentle understanding. He wasn't mad. He accepted the fact that, though she loved him now, she had loved someone else before. And, in a way, she still did.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be." The first words he'd shared that night, and they were spoken, just for her. It made her heart ache to see him try so hard when she wasn't trying at all. She didn't deserve him.

He kissed her. She kissed him. It tasted like salty tears, her's not he's. It tasted like fear and confusion and hurt. It tasted like how she felt, so much so that she had to pull away. But, he wouldn't let her. He kept his lips pressed to hers until she didn't feel anything anymore. It was all a blur, one big fuzzy blob, and only one thought ran through her mind.

"Just breath."

And she did.


End file.
